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Karl Karlsen's wife to testify today about secret recordings she made

Karl Karlsen is Indicted on Four Additional Charges

Karl Karlsen arrives at the Seneca County Courthouse in Waterloo on May 14. He will be back in court today in the fifth installment of a hearing to decide whether a jury will see a video recording of his police interrogation and hear secret recordings made by his wife.
(Stephen D. Cannerelli | scannerelli@syracuse.com)

"I found out ... I would be worth $1.2 million dead to Karl," she told Karlsen's defense lawyer just before court concluded on Aug. 2.

Karl Karlsen is accused of knocking a pickup truck off a jack and crushing his son, Levi, in 2008 to collect a $700,000 insurance policy he had helped Levi get just 17 days earlier. Authorities in California have also re-opened their investigation into a 1991 fire that killed Karlsen's first wife. He collected $200,000 then.

Today is the fifth day of a hearing to decide whether incriminating statements Karlsen allegedly made to police and his wife can be used at his trial in October. The hearing started in early July, and has been held periodically as Seneca County Court Judge Dennis Bender's schedule permits.

Karl Karlsen's defense lawyer, Larry Kasperek, is expected to continue his cross-examination of Cindy Karlsen today. District Attorney Barry Porsch said he plans to call four additional witnesses after that.

Cindy Karlsen said she secretly recorded conversations with her husband at least four times --- the first three times by hiding a small digital recorder in her bra. The last time, on Nov. 16, she wore a wired microphone provided by the Seneca County Sheriff's Department.

Kasperek has argued that the the audio recordings Cindy Karlsen made of her husband in two restaurants last fall should also be thrown out because they were obtained improperly. Kasperek also argued that police denied Karlsen his pain medications and badgered him into a confession during a nearly 10-hour interrogation in November.

In the police interrogation, Karlsen admits to accidentally knocking the truck off a jack and then leaving his son to die. In the secret recording made by Cindy Karlsen at Abigail's restaurant in Seneca Falls, Karl Karlsen says he removed the front tires from his pickup truck and propped it up on a single jack before asking Levi to repair brake and transmission lines.

"It was so wobbly," Karlsen told his wife over lunch. "All that was touching down were the back two wheels. It was like picking up a wheelbarrow."

Karlsen is charged with second-degree murder and insurance fraud.

The video of the entire police interrogation and one of Cindy Karlsen's audio recordings have been played in open court. Bender will decide whether those will be played for the jury.

Karlsen's trial is scheduled to start Oct. 25. Bender plans to bring in potential jurors on Oct. 11 to have them fill out jury questionnaires, Porsch said.